


One for the Absent, One for the Lost

by salakavala



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Tragedy of House Alexius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9455492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salakavala/pseuds/salakavala
Summary: Dorian shares one last drink with Felix and a fear or two with Bull.





	

The Maker was, Dorian thought, a rather fair fellow in his own way. The Iron Bull had lost his eye all those years ago, but had, probably in compensation, received some sort of gift of infuriatingly divine perception for his remaining eye. How else would he always see? Why else would he always _follow_? Or then, Dorian admitted a little grudgingly as he leant against the battlements, or then Dorian gave himself too much credit and hadn't appeared at all as nonchalant as he had put an effort to back in the tavern. Whichever it was, it didn't matter much, because the approaching _clink_ of Bull's ankle brace didn't stop or change direction. Honestly, the wretched man was sometimes worse than Cole.

Bull stopped at an arm's length from Dorian and leant against the stone, close enough for Dorian to feel the whisper of warmth radiating from his body, making him even more aware of the wind that travelled on the battlements, unwarranted. Bull didn't look at Dorian, he had his eye fixed on the camp of the Inquisition forces down in the valley instead; there were fires there to light the night and drive away the blighted chill that sat tightly in the area. The cold must be much worse in the camp than in the castle, but even if he had it better than the regular foot soldiers, Dorian reserved the right to be cold if he so pleased. Not that it was a choice of any degree. He was cold whether he pleased so or not.

To his credit, Bull didn't say anything. He just stood there, providing silent companionship, but careful not to impose, giving Dorian the space he needed, or thought he needed. Or perhaps he was simply wary of pushing Dorian over some figurative edge or another. Either way, it was very thoughtful of him, and greatly infuriating in being so – it only made Dorian feel his own numerous faults more acutely.

So he broke the silence, when Bull wouldn't. Dorian always did have troubles staying silent, didn't he?

“Here to share a drink, Iron Bull?” It wasn't asked kindly; he was incapable of kindness when he was upset. It was hard enough even when he wasn't.

Bull shouldn't have come. His patience would only provoke Dorian.

Bull glanced at the tankard of ale in Dorian's hand, and then at the jug of wine on the battlement. “You've got some to share?” He nodded towards the wine. “Or that for Cole?”

“No, and no. _Some_ of us aren't keen on defiling his innocence.”

“Hey, he was making an effort to be more human, and Candy's good at making a guy feel hu _man_.”

Despite himself, Dorian snorted. “You are insufferable.” He picked the jug with his free hand. “It's for Felix.”

Felix had left Haven for Tevinter before the Inquisitor had closed the Breach and Corypheus had unleashed his archdemon on them all. Bull knew this. Dorian didn't look at his face, but he felt Bull regard him with his Maker-damned all-seeing eye, and heard the frown in his voice. “Okay.” He sounded careful, but didn't prod. He knew Dorian would spill anyway.

Dorian toasted to the moon with both his ale and the jug of wine, and took several gulps from his tankard. The ale left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue, and he grimaced. “Felix would have absolutely despised this horrible swill. The wine isn't of the best vintage either, but it'll do. Felix never did raise a fuss over trivial matters.” He tipped the jug over and poured the wine into the wind and down the walls of the battlements. When it was done, he dropped the jug after the wine. Cabot would be displeased, but that was a matter for another time, if he ever even found out.

“Uh,” Bull began, but now that Dorian had started, he discovered that he did indeed have a mind to talk, and so he leant his elbows on the stone railing, gulped more beer, and ignored Bull.

“Acceptance.” The word stuck to his tongue, acerbic. Dorian tried to drown it with more ale. “It was always one of Felix's merits. The ability to take things as they are and deal with them accordingly. I never was quite good at that, as I'm sure you've noted by now, being a Ben-Hassrath and all. But I tried to learn. Well. Felix made me try to learn.”

Bull was still leaning his elbows against the battlements, but he was looking at Dorian. For all that he had only one eye his attention lay heavy on him, and it made him falter. He drank more to cover it.

“When Corypheus attacked and we had only that last trebuchet to make him pay for our lives, I had accepted it. That we'd all die there, go with a final show. It was surprisingly easy, but then, there wasn't much left but spite and bitterness.” Dorian uttered a curt laughter. “Everything is easy when fuelled with spite and bitterness, I'll tell you. That I excel at. But accepting someone else's death – well. That's a great deal harder.”

“Dorian...”

“Felix is dead.”

“Dorian.” Bull stepped closer then, and Dorian let him, let him place his hand on his shoulder, the bare one, where the contact felt the most personal. Dorian was still leaning against the battlement, eyes on the mountains and a tankard in his hand, but Bull's touch was warm and grounding as always, and he was thankful for it.

“Of course, I've known for years what was bound to happen,” he said, quietly, allowing himself to lean slightly into the warmth on his shoulder. “As had Felix. Naturally. He had accepted the inevitable, and made me accept it as well. 'I should have died there with mother,' he would always tell me. 'I'm here on borrowed time, Dorian, so stop brooding and help me make most of it.' So I – did. I hope.”

Bull hummed. “Sounds like a practical guy. And damn persuasive, if he got you to listen to him.”

Dorian laughed, and if it came out a little watery, Bull didn't mention it. “He was indeed.” Then, as an afterthought that he immediately regretted, “You would have liked him, I think.”

“Yeah?” The corners of Bull's lips curved into a smile, and though it was small, it looked unbearably gentle. Dorian looked away; it struck him that he would have liked to see Bull and Felix in a tavern together, Bull with his ale, Felix trying to look like he enjoyed the mediocre wine. Felix would have enjoyed Bull's stories, and Bull would have laughed at Felix's dry humour. The Chargers would have adored him.

The image was a quick flash, and it left an ache beneath Dorian's ribs. Bull was still looking at him, now with concern. Where's your glib tongue now, Pavus?

“Of course,” Dorian said lightly. “You already like two 'Vints. Why not a third? I, naturally, am one of the two.”

“Dorian.” Bull's hand tightened on his shoulder. “You doing okay?”

Damn him. Dorian opened his mouth for a retort, but made the mistake of glancing at Bull first, and all his resolve to stay collected crumpled into the wind. It was a shuddering breath and a truth that left his lips.

“No. Not really.” He raised his hand to cover Bull's, squeezing it once, hard, then dragged it through his hair and left it there. “Bull. I have to tell Alexius.”

The letter had arrived that same morning, not a fortnight after the Inquisitor had sentenced Gereon Alexius to tranquility. Dorian hadn't yet gone to see his former mentor after the rite, and now, with the news he bore, he didn't know if he could force himself to go at all. Two weeks, not even. _Two weeks_ , and Dorian might have, despite everything, shared a moment of grief with Alexius, if not as with his friend any longer, then at least with the father of someone they both held dear. But how could Dorian go now? With Alexius made tranquil, how could Dorian tell him the news?

Because Alexius had never accepted. He had chosen to fight Felix's illness instead, for his own sake as much as Felix's. He had chosen to defy all known laws of the world and manipulate time itself to prevent losing his son. (As opposed to: manipulate his son to prevent losing him.) Alexius had gone as far as pledging himself into the service of an _ancient darkspawn magister_ , and _that_ was desperation if Dorian had ever seen it; Alexius had – or would have – helped Corypheus turn the world into that sickening mixture of red and green that they had seen in the undone future, all to salvage Felix. And now that same man would only acknowledge his son's death with a nod and an empty stare. That, quite possibly, was more than Dorian would be able to endure.

At least Felix himself would never have to know what had befallen his father. That, at least, Dorian had for consolation. Well, that, and as much alcohol as Cabot had stored in the tavern. Dorian glanced ruefully into his tankard, to find it was nearly empty. He should have bought more – did he not know himself better than that? Fortunately there was still enough left to wash out the taste of bile that had risen to his throat.

Bull stepped closer, draping his arm fully around him. “Shit, Dorian.”

It was easy, too easy to give in to the temptation and let himself fall into Bull's side, take at least that, while he could. “I haven't gone to see Alexius after the judgement was carried out. How can I go now? He's no longer the man I once knew, the man who went against everything he believed in to save his son. Now he will only look at me, note that Felix's death is regrettable but long since coming, and go on about his day. He won't even be able to mourn.”

“It's – yeah. It's pretty fucked up,” Bull admitted. “For what it's worth, I'm sorry.”

Dorian wasn't very sure he was – he had certainly quietly approved of the Inquisitor's decision when it had been made. Hardly surprising, considering how qunari treated their own mages. Was that how he regarded Dorian as well? A walking bomb, but easily quieted should someone with authority decide so. Should he… slip. Mages and magic were still something of a sore spot between them, and although Bull hardly distrusted mages as people just on the basis of them carrying magic, his distrust of magic itself was deep-rooted.

“Fucked up, he says!” Dorian snorted, and there it was, the wave of bitterness again. He shoved Bull's arm off his shoulder and turned to face him full-body. “Well, certainly. I've lost my mentor and my friend to a rite that severs people from everything that makes them human and turns them into soulless vessels, and you deign to admit that it's _fucked up_. Maybe I should be pleased with myself, to have made a qunari admit even that much aloud!”

Bull, damn him to the Void, Bull didn't take the bait, didn't even show the annoyance he must be feeling, and for a blink of a moment Dorian resented him for it.

But then Bull's forehead pulled into a frown and he looked at Dorian like he had made some sort of grand revelation, and Dorian's anger burned out. He knew that Bull had his own struggles trying to fit the Qun's teachings into the same world view with some of his own experiences. It was unfair of Dorian to unload his frustration on him. “Forgive me. Lashing out like a petulant child should be beneath me.” He sighed and ran through his hair with both of his hands. “Alexius sealed his own fate, and I can't argue that his crimes called for severe punishment. I wish it could have been differently, but what is done is done, and,” Dorian produced a wry smile, “I think we've all learnt that the past cannot be altered.”

“You've got a right to be upset, big guy. It's tough to lose the people we love.”

Dorian turned to lean is elbows against the battlement once more and buried his face in his hands. “It's – more than that.” He could feel Bull's gaze linger on him, making it harder to talk, but, Maker, if he didn't say it aloud it would surely consume him from the inside. “Bull. My father was, is, a good man, in his way. And Alexius, he… I didn't just love him. He was once the man to whom I compared all others. They are the two people who made me, for better or worse, and look what has become of them.” They had both given in in the face of temptation, when they had became desperate enough. Could Dorian stay clear of that path, even when it was practically paved for him? Felix had been his lifeline, but now Felix was gone, and it was up to Dorian himself to be the man he had wanted to see in his father.

Bull's hand was on his shoulder again, Bull's fingers on his chin, turning him to face the grey, unwavering stare. “Hey. Dorian. You're not your father or Alexius. You'll never bend just because they did. You're strong, and damn too stubborn to swallow your own principles. Shit, you left your home country because you refused to play along with something you didn't believe in.”

That was the irony of it, wasn't it? Dorian had left Tevinter, only to find himself in the South eye to eye with what could be his own undoing. And for Bull, of all people, to be the one to tell him he would not falter!

“You are right, of course.” Because he was. Dorian was strong enough to fend off the demons, even as they had taken to bothering him more frequently of late. But they were two different things, fending off demons and fending off temptation, weren't they?

“Come on, you're cold. Let's get inside.”

Precisely because his strength on the second point was lacking, Dorian followed him.

xXx

Because Bull didn't know.

“Let me give you what you need,” Bull murmured against Dorian's lips, his sole eye dark and heavy and grounding in the dying light of the red embers. His maimed hand tangling in the hair at the nape of Dorian's neck, the other resting at the small of his back. And it was Dorian who had pulled him closer, even when he should know better. Did know better.

 _Let me give you what you need,_ the demons whispered to him every so often, softly, sadly. Since the arrival in Skyhold they had taken a habit to appear with horns. _You know what it is._ _You could have him, you know you could._

Dorian stepped out of Bull's reach. “Katoh.”

What Bull didn't know was that he could well be a desire demon himself with his offer, and sometimes, when Dorian slept, he was. Those nights Dorian always shook himself awake sweaty and exhausted, only to hear the same earnest words later in Bull's bedroom. Bull, unbeknownst to himself, kept offering what Dorian had never been good at resisting: trust, maybe even love, or illusion thereof. Even worse: he meant it, without knowing what exactly.

That was it, wasn't it? Bull was willing to give what Dorian needed, but it was more than that. It always was more than that. Because there was a significant difference between _being_ _willing to_ and _wanting_ , and the sway from the former to the latter was not in Dorian's power.

“Dorian. Talk to me.”

“Let's just lie down, shall we? I'm afraid I'm not in the right frame of mind for anything physically more demanding tonight.”

Bull's room, Bull's bed, Bull's arms around him when he slept – one could get used to that. That's why Dorian feared it. That's why he always left before sunrise.

For the moment, though, sunrise was yet hours away.

X

 


End file.
